The Boneyard: Where Aircrafts Go to Die

Head to Tucson, Arizona, and you notice a few things: It's pretty hot, it's pretty dry, and much of the landscape is decidedly harsh and flat, not ideal for agriculture, and maybe not all of it is a tourist destination, but we do. If you look at the entire US national air power depot, it's quite a specialized job, possibly one of the most important strategic military sites in the world. You have absolutely come to the right place. Here is located Davis Monon Air Force Base and, by extension, the Boneyard, also known as the 309th. The Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group, or AAR, although rarely mentioned in textbooks, the 309th March It began life as a simple depot for excess Department of Defense Coast Guard aircraft to become a key component not only in virtually every major U.S. military operation since World War II, but also in also In many major foreign military operations, as well as from the fall of the bearing wall to the Vietnam War, the Boneyard went unnoticed and was barely mentioned, but it is like the Lynch pin that held these operations together.

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where

honking beasts head to their deaths;

Rather, the Boneyard is much more about keeping military equipment alive and ready for use, although it also serves as a final resting place for obsolete vehicles. A 20-minute trip in Tuan is a remarkably efficient and incredibly well-organized Air Force arm materiel command task, which not only stores aircraft in various stages of readiness, but is also expected to transfer the stored hardware back to the service in a very short time, in addition to being a storage depot for military hardware, the Boneyard is also instrumental in providing hundreds of millions in parts annually to US and allied fleets.

Simply put, the Boneyard is the much less glorified logistics machine that keeps the US military running as important as if it is not more important than the widely publicized military operations. This probably won't come as a surprise, but the United States has excess military hardware. However, it is important to understand that there is a big difference between having huge fleets of cutting-edge hardware and having huge fleets of cutting-edge hardware. being able to store, organize and deploy that hardware effectively, after all, having expensive aircraft doesn't do much good if it takes a month to get that Armada up and running and in the air, nor does it do much good if what you need is a hammer. and all he has in his two boxes is a screwdriver, meaning, contrary to popular belief, military hardware is not a one-size-fits-all equation.

Individual military hardware is designed with a very specific use in mind, so military success is often defined by flexibility and adaptability rather than who has the most weapons, so the real question is

where

they keep their fleets, how much they spend in keeping them ready and, most importantly, what they do if the current war situation requires different vehicles. those it has on standby, which is why the U.S. military keeps the Boneyard running like a pit machine, the 11-square-kilometer facility with about 3,200 aircraft in various states of readiness, most of which can Shipped within days or sometimes even hours depending on the priority of need and which US department is requesting it.

Essential parts are available with equal levels of efficiency and if a part is prioritized, it can be disassembled, prepared and shipped in as little as 3 days beyond ready-to-run aircraft. There are 6,300 additional engines for various other airborne vehicles. These parts are less likely to be needed in the short term, but are still available in case an unexpected situation requires them. Now, with all that being said, Boneyard wasn't always the cutting edge facility. As it is today, it has taken decades for what was essentially a dump of unnecessary hardware to evolve into the military weaponry of the US.

In the first place, why place a hugely important military installation in the middle of the scorching desert? ? Well, it turns out that a scorching climate is exactly what is needed for sedentary military equipment, since the biggest challenge when storing armored vehicles is natural corrosion. The only reliable answer to rust is that anyone who lives in a tropical climate will tell you to move to a drier climate. This makes the Arizona desert, one of the driest regions in the US, a really cool place. excellent; Of course, there's a lot more to it than just dumping multimillion-dollar hardware in the desert and letting it bake in the sun;

It requires a lot of specialized effort. preparing an airplane that sits still for months or even years enduring temperatures exceeding 101 fenit or 38 CI and a little more on that later, the other benefit of the Tucson desert is that it is naturally a high, harsh and unyielding landscape Under other circumstances, a large amount of time, effort and money would have been invested in paving the 11 square kilometer area, but in Tucón the ground is already almost baked into a cement-like state, allowing towing and maneuvering even heavier vehicles without risk of the wheels sinking into the ground. On the other hand, performing hard manual labor in the desert has more than a few drawbacks, as the 700 stationed at Boneyard and more than 10,000 at Davis Mon and the Air Force Base will attest that dehydration is such a concern that A buddy system has been implemented. whereby engineers involved in particularly stressful jobs are encouraged to look out for each other.

If their body complains of stomach cramps, looks pale or seems exhausted, it's time to intervene and insist that they take a break for rehydration, otherwise You risk ending up in the infirmary receiving emergency fluids. a senior em and Joshua a McKay put it eloquently once you are thirsty in this heat you are already dehydrated you should drink water whether you are thirsty or not despite all the drawbacks Tucson was still the perfect place to store military aircraft in 45 After After World War II, the San Antonio Air Technical Service Command made the decision to store unnecessary Boeing B29 subfortresses and Douglas C47 Sky Train aircraft in the Arizona desert.

This is the first step that eventually turned the Boneyard into that cutting-edge air force-encompassing balloon. Center it is today, at the time when the San Antonio Air Technical Service Command decided to store unnecessary aircraft at the modern Davis Air Force Base, there were not many specialized storage facilities available, the idea of ​​recycling or reprocessing military vehicles was yet to be adequately explored, and after World War II, unnecessary military equipment was often simply hidden away or dumped in a landfill, so the newly founded 415th Air Force base unit of the Army, a dedicated storage facility, was more of a makeshift necessity than something truly specialized.

After its establishment a series of rapid changes occurred in the US Army, the most notable of which occurred in 1947, the The United States Air Force was permanently separated from the United States armed forces, thus creating a completely independent entity, needless to say, the much larger and better funded USAF. set out to expand its capabilities and as research and new aircraft production increased, so did the need for dedicated storage and maintenance. Now the Boneyard underwent a frankly comical number of name and designation changes over the ensuing decades and we're not going there. To cover everything, it would be really boring.

Nell's story is that the breakthrough came in 1965, when the facility was renamed the Military Aircraft Storage Disposal Center and tasked with processing aircraft for all of the United States military, not just the United States Armed Forces. US Air Force, US Navy had previously operated Naval Air Station Lichfield Park on behalf of the Marine Corps and Navy Coast Guard, but these facilities were expanded to the rapidly expanding depot at Davis Monon Air Force Base, more than 500 aircraft were transported across Arizona and the Navy. The Air Station closed permanently in 1968, the Boneyard went through several additional stages of evolution over the years, adapting to the needs of the military as they arose until finally, in 2007, the Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Center was opened.

It combined with the 309th Maintenance Wing, effectively creating a single centralized facility that handled aircraft storage and maintenance on behalf of all branches of the U.S. government, as well as extending those services to the Allied Nations. US departments that rely on this facility today include the National Museum of the US Air Force, NASA, the Department of Agriculture, the National Science Foundation, and even the Smithsonia Institution and a side note here, the external Smithsonian scenes in Transformers Revenge of the Fallen were actually filmed at the Boneyard. Curious fact as it stands today. Amar is widely recognized as one of the most strategically important military installations in the world, this single location not only keeps a large percentage of the world's aircraft operational, but is also home to some of the most talented military engineers. , according to Boneyard Commander Col.

Robert S. Leopard Junior, citing here that the experience of our workforce goes beyond that. Of almost every other maintenance group commander across the Air Force in the active duty Force, most maintainers work on aircraft at most, but my teams work on nine different aircraft in a day and take parts of six or seven different types of aircraft most of my people have between 20 and 40 years of experience in aircraft maintenance, most maintenance group commanders would kill to have 5 years of average experience. That said, what exactly goes into storing and maintaining multi-million dollar aircraft? Well, let's look at that now, will the planes need to get to the Cemeteries are classified into storage categories depending on the broader needs of the military.

The categories are Type 1000, Long Term Storage, Type 2000, Parts Recovery, Type 3000, Flight Retention, and Type 4000 in Excess DoD Needs, now regardless of the type of storage, it is no small task. Preparing an aircraft for hibernation will on average take Boneyard engineers and mechanics 50 hours of manual work before any hardware can be reliably placed in the sun. helicopters take longer. Since special treatment must be given to RO blades, particularly large aircraft such as the massive B52 it can take up to 300 hours before its green L is stowed upon arrival at the Boneyard. A computer accepts the hardware at the receiving branch.

Each item comes with documentation listing maintenance received since original construction, ensuring it isprovides appropriate treatment. Everything that served in a tropical climate is washed with special attention, the fuel is washed, corrosive chemicals are drained and explosive items such as ejector seat components, clocks and data plates are removed, although this not for security but for reasons. Clocks and data plates are often stolen by visitors due to an enthusiastic collector's market for these particular items. This, of course, is not to say that the Bonard's safety is mediocre. There is a rapid security divergence at the moment. In fact, installations have ramped up in recent years due to a dramatic increase in the value of F-14 Tomcat parts on the black market.

F14 parts are highly sought after by the Iranian Air Force, this following a US sale of 79 F14s to Iran in the late 1970s, later the Islamic Revolution soured relations between the two. nations and the United States imposed a restriction on the sale of F14 parts to Iran in the hope that the sold fleet would remain grounded, as countless shady arms dealers have emerged ready to pay. a small fortune for anything to help maintain Iran's aging F-14s since operational measures have been taken to counter the problem, including the destruction of surplus F-14s at Boneyard, as well as a beefed-up of security at all areas, so let's get to work. returning to the receiving branch after the aircraft a process they place in the specific category of specialized storage type th storage means that the aircraft is kept in good condition given that it will probably fly again at some point parts in type th000 storage are generally available for salvage although only in the case of priority and only if strict permissions are granted, approximately 10% of the aircraft in the Boneyard are in storage of 000 units and their maintenance is a priority, all types of thousands of aircraft can be quickly resurrected back into service, although resurrection will not be as rapid as type 3000 storage.

Type 2000 aircraft are stored similarly to type 1000, but with hardware in this category expressly green-lit for partial recovery, either way. , be it an aircraft intended for storage of th000 or 2000 The vehicle will undergo a spray lat treatment before being exposed to the scorching Desert Sun. Spray coating refers to the process of applying a $550 per 5 gallon or 19 L latex that is applied as a cocoon to the exterior of the aircraft with a black interior and white exterior coating. Layers are used. All gaps, holes and gaps are carefully covered to prevent moisture, sound or dirt from entering. Particular attention is paid to vulnerable exterior moving parts, as well as providing protection against moisture, LS latex also ensures that no matter how hot it is inside. of the aircraft never exceeds 15° ambient temperature type 3,000 storage spaces for aircraft that will probably return to service in the near future it is these vehicles that occupy much of the main activity at Boneyard, since they must be carefully considered 24 hours provided to prevent the complex machinery from falling into a state of stagnation The engines are started every 30 days The internal fluids are checked regularly and the aircraft is even manually towed over short distances to ensure the floating bearings remain lubricated You can call an aircraft in Type 3000 storage back into active service in a matter of days or sometimes even hours depending on the circumstances and lastly, Type 4000 storage is for aircraft that are not currently needed and are unlikely that they will be needed again in the future and are otherwise considered completely unnecessary.

Vehicles of type 4,000 have been dismantled. Engines are stored separately and valuable parts are sorted and made available to local and allied fleets once all valuable parts and useful materials are collected, everything is sent to the scrapping department and that, of In fact, it takes us to the Boneyard's scrapping department at the end. resting place of obsolete military equipment the demolition section or demilitarization section is tasked with deconstructing the remains of aircraft as much as possible and then cutting the hollow shell into more manageable pieces, anything that cannot be melted down and recycled is put Officially resting well in the scrapyard, the 578th Disposal Squadron is the first in the long scrapping process tasked with removing hazardous materials like bright asbestos, whatever, radioactive lead and depleted uranium.

Depleted uranium was used in the armor of the Fairchild Republic A10 Thunderball 2 and in the armor of the C130 Hercules, if you are curious what it is used for after the hazardous materials disposal, a recently defunct unit, recovery and reuse program of strategic materials previously oversaw the separation of potentially salable metals such as titanium for the defense of the Allied Nations. Logistics has since discontinued that service due to labor costs and now any nation interested in scrap metal is responsible for recovering it in its own time, it is worth noting that, rather admirably, if at any stage of scrapping , Boneyard teams find something interesting, such as unique nose art or any other notable feature worth preserving, they contact the National Museum of the US Air Force before disposing of the vehicle entirely, the Boneyard has played a role in a frankly dizzying number of strategic military operations over the years, including the Berlin Airlift, the Korean War, the Missile Crisis, the Vietnam War Operation, Operation Storm of the Bosnian Desert.

The Zachi and Enduring Freedom war operations, as well as the ongoing global war on terrorism, are so many that it would take an unrealistically long video to list it all, so this is a very brief summary of some of the notable operations that depended on the Boneyard in some way. or another In 1948, when the Cold War blossomed to occupy the chaos left by World War II, the Soviet Union blocked all road, rail and canal traffic in and out of Western control. Berlin in response, the Berlin AA Strategic Lift was launched, prompting Britain and the United States to drop essential supplies to stranded civilians.

Some 250,000 flights were made, many of them on C47 cargo planes stored at the Boneyard. With the help of these rapidly deployed aircraft, the target amount of supplies delivered was often doubled, finally ending what could otherwise have been a humanitarian disaster. In the 1950s, the Boneyard played a pivotal role in several operations. important, as well as mainly in supporting the Korean War Junta. Several hundred B29 bombers stored after World War II were quickly refitted and redeployed for missions to North Korea in that same period. 80b 29s were provided to the United Kingdom to provide the country with long-range strike capabilities prior to the development and deployment of the country's own English Electric cyber in the 1970s, after the Vietnam War the Boneyard reached its peak storage capacity.

Landing as the designated Depo For many of the registered aircraft in service at the time, a total of 6,080 aircraft were overseen by a comparatively small crew working at the Boneyard. Towards the end of the 1970s, a historic program was started at the Boneyard that remains in operation to this day. of aircraft taken out of storage and experimentally converted into unmanned drones and yes, drones have been around since the late 1970s to date, over a thousand aircraft at the Boneyard including the f102 Delta daggers F100 super saers f106 Delta dots F4 Phantom 2os and F16 Fighting Falcons have been converted to unmanned drone status by specialized engineers at Boneyard, the at0 SW, the Boneyard, the aerospace regeneration and maintenance center at that time takes on the additional task of dismantling and reusing missiles intercontinental ballistic missiles for use in launching satellites after this in the 1990s.

The facility played a key role in coordinating the US in fulfilling the groundbreaking measures for the strategic arms reduction treaty or the start one's. The bilateral agreement signed by the US and Russia saw both nations agree to greatly reduce the amount of offensive military items held by each. Nation the Boneyard oversaw the dismantlement of 365 Boeing B52 Strat Fortress bombers, all under the careful surveillance of Russia's fire satellites and first-person fire inspections. In 2012, the Boneyard was augmented to support military operations in Iraq, which which required the reuse of 10,000 pieces in support. of several fleets, among which the F-15 B1 BS F-16 C5 and C135 stand out, the entire operation had a value of around 472 million dollars.

In 2023 it was reported that, in supporting the conflict in Ukraine, the facility recovered and processed around 7,000 pieces of which were worth over a quarter of a trillion dollars, the facility itself is valued at around 34 billion ion in the Today, making it one of the most valuable strategic military locations in the world, Boneyard will undoubtedly continue to support Ukraine no matter when or how the war ends. comes to a conclusion